CHERUB: Black Friday

by Robert Muchamore

  ‘Random,’ Ryan said, flattered as he laughed and looked at his feet. ‘Your feet aren’t bad, but they’re not your best bit.’

  Ryan inhaled Natalka’s odours of cigarettes and shower gel as she swung a leg up on to the bed and straddled his waist. He felt blissful, looking at cleavage inside the unbuttoned polo, with a little diamond pendant spinning just above the tip of his nose.

  ‘So what’s my best bit?’ Natalka asked.

  Before Ryan could decide between saying personality or, more honestly, tits, Natalka saved him the dilemma by lowering her head for a passionate kiss. It was always great when they kissed, but this was the best ever because until two minutes earlier he’d thought this would never happen again.

  Dubai’s government likes to portray the city-state as an upscale desert paradise of posh shops, beach resorts and high-rise towers. But less than ten per cent of the Emirate’s population are natives. Menial jobs from builder to hotel maid are done by low-waged workers brought in from poorer countries like Iran and Pakistan.

  Andre and Tamara’s background story was that they’d fled from the Kremlin with little money, so after a comfortable business class flight from London, the pair found themselves staying in a warren of tiny four-storey apartment blocks. They’d been designed for couples, but rents were high and most were shared by eight to ten workers.

  Although the pair had a room with a bare concrete floor to themselves, the previous occupants’ smell lingered in the foul squat toilet and stained mattresses piled in one corner of the living area. TV, telephone and air conditioning were all coin-operated and there was constant background noise. Shouts and moped engines competed with ringing mobiles, bhangra music and La Liga highlights.

  Andre stood by a cracked pane of glass, looking down two floors at a line-up of dark-skinned women, dressed in pink maids’ outfits and cooking stew on an open fire in the courtyard.

  ‘Get away from the glass,’ Tamara said. ‘You’ll attract attention.’

  Andre backed off and saw that his mother was going through the stack of mattresses. ‘There’s a couple that are not so bad and they’ve left us new bedding.’

  ‘Was your instructor nice?’ Andre asked.

  Tamara shrugged. ‘I learned a lot, but he was a cold fish. Went home to his family at five thirty every day. I don’t think he cared who I was, or whether I’d be dead in two weeks.’

  ‘James was really cool,’ Andre said, as he strung together a couple of Karate moves that ended with an unbalanced roundhouse kick. ‘You should have seen his sister’s car. She’s got this mental Dodge Challenger. There was no traffic on the roads when we set off this morning and she was blasting it.’

  Tamara smiled. ‘You’re really taken with this James. I think James has been every third word out of your mouth since we left London.’

  Andre laughed. ‘I’ve never met anyone that cool before. I’d love to be like that when I’m older.’

  ‘James, James, James, James, James, James, James,’ Tamara teased, as she threw her own Karate kick and blew a kiss. ‘I’m starting to think you’ve fallen in love with James.’

  Andre was impressed with his mum’s kick. ‘You’re not half bad.’

  ‘My instructor said I was a natural,’ Tamara said. ‘I did ballet when I was a girl. It’s not so very different.’

  ‘Guns were my favourite,’ Andre said. ‘And driving. James let me take a Mercedes up to about a hundred mph.’

  ‘Pow!’ Tamara said, giving Andre enough of a kick on the butt to send him stumbling forward over one of the mattresses.

  She then switched from Karate to WCW mode, moving to jump on top of Andre but giving him heaps of time to roll out of the way.

  ‘Narrow escape from the big fat pudding!’ Andre said, giggling as his mum hit the springy mattress, making him bounce upwards.

  ‘I’ll give you fat pudding, Andre Aramov,’ Tamara said, as she reached across and tweaked Andre’s ear before licking her lips to give him a deliberately soggy kiss on the cheek.

  ‘James was cool,’ Andre said, wiping mom spit on his shirtsleeve before giving her a kiss back. ‘But I only love you.’

  They ended up lying next to each other on the grubby mattress. Andre studied ants crawling around a grimy light fitting. Someone had amused themselves by melting the plastic shade with a cigarette end.

  ‘I can never be free until your dad is dead or in prison,’ Tamara said. ‘When this is over, we’ll find some place close to my family. You’ll go to a better school, not like that shit heap in Bishkek. You’re easily smart enough to be a doctor.’

  ‘Blood makes me feel faint,’ Andre said.

  Tamara laughed. ‘I don’t care what you do, as long as you work hard and you’re happy. Amy promised they’d look after us. A house, my own little car. Maybe a job doing hair, or waitressing. I don’t want anything rich or fancy. Just you and me, having a normal life.’

  An e-mail from Amy made Ryan’s phone vibrate and his head poked out from under the bedclothes. The afternoon had been amazing; they’d curled up under Ryan’s duvet, snogging and feeling each other up until Natalka’s hangover forced her back to sleep.

  Ryan read the message: Andre & Tamara in place. Igor back from market.

  Ryan had never wanted to stay in bed more. The sun was bright enough to pierce the sheets and he took a longing look at Natalka’s breasts before rolling out gently, careful not to disturb her. Life felt unbelievably good as he pulled on jeans. He could even see what Natalka meant about his feet being cute and he wore a huge smile as he pushed them into his Converse.

  Natalka moaned and hooked a finger through a belt loop on Ryan’s jeans. ‘Why go?’ she asked softly.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ Ryan said. ‘I owe Igor for some stuff he got me in the market.’

  ‘He won’t be in the bar until later.’

  ‘He’s expecting me,’ Ryan said, throwing Natalka her cigarettes and lighter before pulling a plaid shirt up his arms and grabbing keys, wallet and a notepad off the worktop beside the sink. ‘Go back to sleep.’

  He gave Natalka a goodbye peck and did up his shirt buttons as he walked downstairs to the bar. Igor had two women with him, but lit like a flashbulb and excused himself when Ryan appeared.

  ‘There’s only one thing you want to see,’ Ryan said happily, as he flashed a square of folded paper. ‘And twenty thousand things I want to see.’

  ‘Not here,’ Igor said. ‘If people see me passing you money they’ll ask why.’

  Igor led the way into a gent’s toilet that was just a stinking metal peeing trough. The taps were disconnected and the sit-down toilets had been blocked since before Ryan first arrived at the Kremlin.

  ‘How’d you get it?’ Igor asked, as he looked at the number and address written on the ruled sheet.

  The move to the toilet and Igor’s tone made Ryan suspect he was about to get stiffed for the twenty thousand som.

  ‘How’d you get the address?’ Igor repeated.

  ‘Andre’s a video games nut,’ Ryan explained. ‘He had a delivery of new games from some website in China. I offered to post them on.’

  ‘So you can still get access to the fifth floor?’ Igor asked, as he began counting out five-hundred som notes. ‘How’d you get past the guards?’

  Ryan shrugged. ‘They know I was Andre’s mate. I guess nobody told them to stop letting me through.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Igor said. ‘Who’s up there?’

  ‘Two guards on the lift, two on the stairs.’

  ‘I mean who lives there.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Ryan said. ‘As far as I know it’s deserted, apart from the room at the end where Josef lives with that blonde.’

  ‘Amy,’ Igor said. ‘You know her?’

  Ryan shrugged, as Igor passed the twenty thousand over. ‘Amy’s said hello. She ate with Tamara a couple of times when I was visiting Andre.’

  ‘It’s odd,’ Igor said. ‘That Amy appeared out of nowhere. Before that, Josef n
ever showed any taste for women. Not even when there was a warehouse full of Korean girls at the far end of the runway.’

  ‘Didn’t he meet her in Dubai or something?’ Ryan asked. ‘I heard she was a stripper, or a prostitute, or something.’

  Igor laughed and gave a little thrust of his hips. ‘She’s a honey, for sure. If Josef’s paying her, she’s worth every penny.’

  ‘I’d totally bang her,’ Ryan agreed.

  Igor’s tone got more serious. ‘You haven’t got a lot of options with your father dead and this place going to shit. But I heard how you handled Vlad.’

  ‘My dad taught me to look after myself,’ Ryan said. ‘It’s no big deal taking a man down if you belt him with a fire extinguisher before he even knows you’re there.’

  ‘How would you feel about heading up to the fifth floor for me?’ Igor asked.

  ‘For what?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Silenced pistol,’ Igor said, making a gun with his fingers. ‘I’m told there’s a back corridor that the Aramovs use to go between apartments. So you go into Tamara’s place, hole up for a few hours. Then you wait for Josef and Amy to fall asleep in one another’s arms and bang, bang.’

  Ryan knew that Amy and Josef didn’t share a bed, and wasn’t surprised that Igor wanted them dead. Leonid Aramov was a jealous man, who’d hate the idea that his brother had tried to seduce Tamara. Second, Leonid didn’t know that TFU now controlled the clan. As far as he was concerned, Josef’s death would create a power vacuum and enable him to return to the Kremlin and get back control of the family business.

  ‘You’d be well looked after, Ryan,’ Igor said.

  ‘I’m not exactly overwhelmed with career options,’ Ryan said. ‘There was talk of Josef finding me odd jobs, but I’ve heard nothing so far.’

  ‘Keep me posted on anything you hear and I’ll be in touch.’

  Ryan was intrigued by what he’d heard, but he was also annoyed. He’d now have to go and tell Amy about Igor’s proposal, when all he wanted to do was strip and slide back under the covers next to Natalka.

  32. CALL

  Andre knew it was coming. Nobody else had the number, but he still shuddered when he grabbed the ringing payphone and heard his father’s voice.

  ‘Andre?’

  The line was faint. A slight delay indicated that the voice came from far away.

  ‘Dad? Is that you?’

  ‘No, it’s Father Christmas,’ Leonid said. His tone was bitter, because the last time Andre saw his father, he’d sided with his grandma Irena against him. ‘How are you?’

  ‘OK, I guess,’ Andre said. ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘You’ll find out. I guess you’ve grown?’

  ‘It’s been a year,’ Andre said. ‘Haven’t measured though.’

  There was an awkward pause as a father and son who didn’t think much of each other hunted for words.

  ‘Put your mother on,’ Leonid said finally.

  ‘Hang on.’

  Tamara placed a reassuring hand on Andre’s back as she took the receiver.

  ‘Leonid?’ she said, faking surprise. ‘How did you find us here?’

  ‘I found you,’ Leonid said. ‘That’s all that matters. I tried your mobiles when I heard that you’d left the Kremlin.’

  ‘I’ve got a new number,’ Tamara said. ‘You paid the contract on our old phones. The SIMs got cancelled when the payments bounced.’

  Leonid made a kind of growling noise. ‘So is it true what I hear about Josef?’

  ‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ Tamara said, changing to a higher pitch to make it sound like she was distressed. ‘You’ll just get angry.’

  ‘I’ve a right to get angry,’ Leonid roared. ‘My brother harassing my wife, while some blonde whore is sharing his bed.’

  ‘Ex-wife,’ Tamara corrected, unable to hide her bitterness. ‘You traded me in for a nineteen-year-old.’

  ‘My head was in a bad place back then,’ Leonid said. ‘You were always the one, Tamara. How many times did I ask you to remarry?’

  Tamara seethed as she remembered that Leonid and his cronies had regarded abusing the North Korean women the Aramov Clan trafficked to Europe as a perk of their job. But she had to keep the anger in check if she was going to pull off this plan and clear Leonid out of her life.

  ‘I missed having you around,’ Tamara lied.

  ‘I’m told you’re short of cash.’

  ‘Josef let me have one credit card, but I’ve maxed it. We stayed in a hotel the first few days, but now we’re at this horrible place. Andre can’t sleep because of the noise. He’s not going to school and there’s needles on the stairs.’

  ‘If I’d known I’d have helped sooner. But I know now, so you don’t have to worry.’

  ‘You have money?’ Tamara asked.

  ‘My mother stripped most of what I have,’ Leonid said. ‘But she let me keep enough to tick over, and I’ve done OK for myself since.’

  ‘Even a few hundred dollars,’ Tamara pleaded.

  Leonid laughed. ‘Princess, you’re not staying in that horrible place alone. You belong with me.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘I can’t say, but you’ll like it.’

  ‘I … ’ Tamara said. ‘What about Andre?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I’m talking about what happened with Irena,’ Tamara said. ‘You told Andre you’d have him killed.’

  ‘He’s a boy,’ Leonid said, after a pause.

  Tamara raised her voice. ‘I’ve always loved you, Leonid. But you lay one finger on that boy … ’

  ‘He’s my flesh and blood,’ Leonid said. ‘Of course I was angry at the time, but I love Andre as much as I love you, or Alex, or Boris.’

  ‘So how does this work? How do I get to you?’

  ‘It’ll take some working out,’ Leonid said. ‘Especially with Christmas in three days. Don’t stray too far from your apartment and be ready to leave at short notice.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Better not stay on the line longer than I have to,’ Leonid said. ‘I love you, Tamara. Tell Andre not to be scared and that I love him too.’

  ‘Right,’ Tamara said. And then after a few seconds’ thought and a fake sob, ‘I love you too.’

  Tamara looked at her son as she put the receiver down.

  ‘What did he say about me?’ Andre asked.

  ‘He said he forgives you and he loves you.’

  Andre snorted. ‘I’d have more faith if that hadn’t come from a man who murdered his sister and poisoned his mother.’

  ‘I know,’ Tamara said softly. ‘But your father knows he’d lose me if he ever did anything to you.’

  ‘He won’t go nuts at me straight away because he won’t want to upset you, but once he gets comfortable.’

  ‘I know,’ Tamara said. ‘But we’ll only stay long enough to get some idea of what he’s up to. Then Amy’s people will deal with him and we can start our new life.’

  ‘I might change my name to Kobe for my new identity,’ Andre said, trying to lighten the mood.

  Tamara looked mystified. ‘I’ve never heard that name before.’

  ‘Kobe Bryant,’ Andre explained. ‘He’s like the most famous basketball player in the world.’

  Before Tamara could answer, a cheapo Nokia tucked into Andre’s backpack began vibrating. It was Ted Brasker.

  ‘You both did great,’ Ted said warmly.

  ‘Did you trace my dad’s call?’ Andre asked.

  ‘Came out of a data-centre in Russia,’ Ted said. ‘Which means he was routing via the Internet. My headquarters in Dallas will do some more work on it, but it’s almost certainly untraceable.’

  ‘You still think he’s in Mexico though?’

  ‘Absolutely. But it’s frustrating that we’ve not been able to narrow it down to a town or province,’ Ted said. ‘Your dad has associates in Sharjah and Dubai. It’ll take him a day or two to sort out false documents for you and travel plans to Mex
ico, but now that he knows where you are there’s a chance he’ll send a minder to collect you, or put you under surveillance if he’s in any way suspicious.’

  ‘Right,’ Andre said.

  ‘So you and your mum must remember your training. Leonid is too suspicious for you to travel with a covert tracking device or any other equipment. It’s a near certainty you’ll be told to abandon your mobile phones and Wi-Fi devices because they can be tracked down. If you can find a way to communicate with us en-route to Mexico that’s great, but don’t take any kind of risk. The important thing is to get to Mexico safely, and let us know where you are shortly after you arrive.’

  ‘Got it,’ Andre said.

  ‘I’ll try and be on the ground in Mexico before you arrive, but it’s a big country and we don’t know where you’ll be heading. So it may be a day or two before I’m there covering your backs.’

  33. WORK

  Tamara wanted to treat Andre on Christmas Day, but couldn’t splurge because Leonid had been told they were desperate for money and he might be having them watched. It would have been impossible to hide presents in their tiny room, but Dubai was an Islamic state so everywhere was open and the pair took a short taxi ride to a mall.

  They ate a modest turkey dinner on an indoor terrace overlooking shops, straddled fake jet skis in an amusement arcade and came away with some posh chocolates and a few bits of extra clothing. Andre was depressed by the thought of a fourth evening lolling about in their dismal room with no video games and no English or Russian language stations on the TV.

  He was squatting on a mattress, feeding laces into a new pair of trainers, when he caught a whiff of smoke. It was wafting from a window on the next level down and he took the bolts off their door and stepped out on to the balcony, which ran the length of their floor.

  As more residents joined Andre on the balcony, men on the next level down tried dousing the flames with water buckets.

  Andre shouted back through the open front door, ‘Mum, I think it’s serious.’

  A few people had decided to head for the stairs, but others stood around, hoping things would calm down before they had to leave their rooms. Thickening smoke and the eruption of a fire alarm changed the mood and Tamara had angst in her voice as she tapped Andre on the shoulder and handed him a backpack. They kept everything packed, as per Leonid’s orders.